The modular wash plant brings together aggregate and sand washing on one modular chassis, producing three aggregates and two sands on one machine. The official unveiling and live demonstration took place at Dowling Quarries, Abbeyleix as part of TWS Annual Dealer Forum held at the Heritage Golf & Spa Resort in Killenard, Co. Laois in Ireland.

More than 40 TWS distributors from around the world attended the event, where they saw a first-time live demonstration of the Aggresand modular plant.

The main objective in developing the Aggresand plant was to meet our customers’ needs for a modular system that can efficiently wash and produce multiple aggregates and sands within one machine. The Aggresand plant is designed to provide a throughput capacity of 250 tph as well as to have a quick set-up time allowing the plant to be erected in one day.

The newest modular plant is also designed for efficient transport by fitting into six shipping containers. During the packing process at the TWS factory, the containers are loaded and arranged in a specific manner to help speed up installation time on site. ‘Plug and play’ plumbing/pipework and electrical wiring allow for a quick set-up time, compared to traditional methods in which this work is carried out onsite after installation.

The first Aggresand machine has been working in Dowling’s Quarry in Abbeyleix, Co. Laois for the past six weeks and is processing, to date, glacier sand and gravel material formed during the ice age.

Quarry owner Humphrey Dowling commented, “This plant ultimately replaced an older Terex washplant that was installed 13 years ago…. The plant arrived on site and was installed in approximately ten hours. I like the idea of the modular aspect, allowing it to be moved to another site later…. The high performance two deck vibrating grid allows us to feed material directly from the face of the quarry at 200 millimeters. Large material is scalped off while the minus 50-millimeter material goes straight into the wash plant. This eliminates the need for expensive pre-screening of the feed material.”

The Aggresand plant at Dowling’s Quarry is fitted with a 12-foot double deck vibrating grid with 100-millimeter bofor bars and 50-millimeter woven wire mesh. This particular plant separates zero to 40 millimeters to the wash plant that gives three aggregate materials and two sand.

Reject material from the live head is stockpiled and later crushed when accumulated into stockpiles of 50,000 tons, then crushed into 6f2 material via a Terex Crusher. On the bottom deck the less than 50-millimeter product is delivered by the feeder belt to a 1,000-millimeter-wide electrically driven inclined feed belt. This wide conveyor is fitted with an integral wash box to pre-soak the material and delivers the material to the full width of the screen thus utilizing the full screening area.

The 16-foot by 5-foot (4.9-meter by 1.5-meter) three deck screen is electrically driven producing an aggressive 6mm throw and is fitted with eight individually controlled spray bars on each deck. The sized and rinsed aggregates produced by the screen are stock piled on three integral 9m stockpilers.

The dual sand plant includes two rubber lined centrifugal pumps and two heavy duty rubber lined cyclones which remove silt (<75 micron). The silt-free sand is delivered to a split 12-foot by 5-foot screen to produce two grades of dewatered (12-percent moisture) silt-free sand. The sand stockpilers are radial powered through electrical wheel drives and have a stockpiling capacity of 350 cubic meters.

The end products are used as follows: 6-14 millimeters, 14-22 millimeters, 22-40 millimeters. Zero- to 3-millimeter sand is used for plastering and block making, the zero- to 5-millimeter sand is used in the production of concrete. Overall there is zero waste from the plant and minimum sand being lost to ponds.

When asked about his favorite feature of the plant, Humphrey said, “My favorite feature on the entire plant is the radial sand stockpiling conveyors, which provide great capacity and save on re-handling. The sand is also coming off the conveyors extremely dry. I also like the hydraulic operation of the feeder and the vibrating grid which works well and gives great levels of control.”

Plant operator, John Hamm, at Dowling’s Quarry added “The control panel is extremely user-friendly and provides a simple interface, while at the same time being very effective and offering full control of the plant remotely.”

Sean Loughran, Director of TWS, added that “this machine is the first in a line of planned modular plants to be released over the coming 24 months.”